Event Coverage RIP: Rod & Custom Magazine

Guess what ? I just renewed for two more years about two months ago. What happens now?

 

you get street rodder for two years...

 

Just picked up last one at B&N


From Austinrod

 

Just got my first issue of 2yrs of Street Rodder to finish out my 2 yr. R&C renewal. Can you see how excited I am?

 

Oh, great. Now they're sending me Motor Trend magazine until 2017 to "replace" R&C, since I already get "Street Rodder" (which was a gift).
I'm going to see if I can just cancel Motor Trend and get some money back.

 

I've still got my 'Bring back Rod and Custom' T-shirt, bit small now tho. Shame about the mag going, not alot left to read now!

 

......................Actually, I just looked through it and I don't know if they are trying to reel us in or if they've really been listening. There's a nice article on Jeff Norwell, a tribute to Speedy Bill and a couple of decent tech articles. I will continue to withhold judgement. This may work out after all.

 

Interesting. I'm not in the printing industry, but based on the lead time for things, wouldn't the October issue already have been at the printers when the announcement was made?
The cover has "Farewell Issue" on it. I wonder if some departments knew about the axe before the announcement was made.

 

You could probably call customer service and have them drop the Motor Trend and extend your SR sub instead if you wanted them to.

 

Whoopee, I now have 6 months of Motor Trend also!
Just kinda roast my chestnuts. If they looked at my other subscriptions what would make them think Motor Trend would satisfy me? Obviously they don't care!
KK

 

I just got my last issue too. When the corporate hacks took over its been going downhill ever since. It just seems like they like to kill this magazine!

 

I've been a student of the special interest magazine business for longer than I care to admit. My wife is a quilter and she received notice this week that her favorite magazine is closing shop. This particular publisher is not unlike PrimeMedia or TEN with plenty of titles that overlap coverage on a hobby. Like others here, she will get an extension with a magazine she doesn't particularly want.

In my opinion, R&C is just the first of countless books in many special interest fields that will fall by the wayside as newstand/subscription sales drop like rock. I do take umbrage with the many posts here bashing the suits and referring to "corporate greed"; the print business is circling the drain due to the fact that you can get instant results here on the HAMB without spending a dime.

 

Yep, that's exactly what I intend to do !

Motor Trend ? Ya gotta be kidding.............

 

I got my money back. Raise a stink.

 

I have to wonder why they didn't sell the title to someone who could continue the magazine?

 

Strangely enough, I just saw that same final issue on my local news stand - it DID NOT have the "Farewell Issue" message on the cover. Maybe only subscribers got that cover?

 

Just got my new Motor Trend. I am sure the advertisers would like to know that it will go in the trash like the other junk mail. Not much use of their media budgets. I can not imagine a less likely substitute for R&C for me.

Did not see much different in the new Street Rodder (Oct. 2014) that incorporates R&C as was promised.

Say goodbye to T.E.N. they will go away like Source and Primemedia if they are so ignorant of the demographic they are aiming for.


www.hotrodartwork.com

 

My take on this. One thing to remember is that this company, PRIMEDIA, sought out and bought multiple companies and titles in an effort to dominate the business and the advertising revenue with a monopoly that allowed them to raise their ad rates to exorbitant levels. Their advertisers then expected the content to go with their ads they were paying way too much for, making the content one big commercial venture. That is what kills the business for us, the "enthusiasts". The suits in the corporation have one passion, maximum profits for a small number of people, even if it kills the business. Look at what has happened to many of them in the last 20 years. Screw them, and if that is the world you want to live in, don't count on me as a customer. The business model has worked before and will again, but not at the profit levels a "corporation" requires. Small businesses, the back bone of this country, do it every day.

 

.....................It appears that they are going to try to include some R&C type material in Street Rodder going forward. This may be the reason for hanging onto the brand. I expect at some point the cover may say something like Street Rodder with content from Rod & Custom. You're right though, they probably could have sold the rights to use the name for a tidy sum.

 

putting Rod & Custom on the cover will not make me buy Street Rodder. goofy bastards, do these guys know anything about car people?

 

got my Street Rodder in lieu of R&C today. Geez that has gone downhill since the old days. And too slick to use in outhouse so into recycle bin. My R&C sub was until 11/14 and this issue of SR was 10/14 I got today. So guess I only get one more SR issue. Why did they bother?

 

I got the latest issue of Motor Trend today. That works.............................NOT!!! I emailed customer service to add the remainder of my R&C sub onto my HRD sub. We'll see hoe that works.

 

Why didn't they dump Street Rodder, and keep Rod&Custom?

 

I called and they said they'd send a refund for my 2 years left on R&C instead of sending Street Rodder. Today I got my forst SR.

Hopefully things just crossed in the mail, so to speak.

I also got my first copy of Car Craft in place of PHR which has also been discontinued. I canceled CC some time ago after they automatically extended my sub without my requesting it and then sent me a bill for the extension. Guess I need to call and have them refund if possible instead of sending 2 years of a mag I don't want.

sigh.

 

I just got my new issue of "Motor Trend" and I also noticed that on my last issue of "Rod & Custom" that my subscription was good until May of 2017 but their replacement "Motor Trend" will now expire in March of 2017. So the clueless bastards not only gave me a magazine that couldn't be farther from my interests and then screwed me out of two months of my original subscription to "Rod & Custom".

I was thinking of asking that them to add my remaining months on to my subscription of "Street Rodder" but I also received the latest issue of that today too. After looking through it I couldn't find anything that interested me. Every tech article was a commercial for their advertisers and every car featured was built by a shop! Along with 85 pages of advertising out of a total of 154 pages. What a joke! Its no wonder they are losing subscribers and I will drop them both. I will be asking for a refund for both Rod & Custom and "Street Rodder". These magazines were founded and built on the premise of its readers building and modifying their own hot rods, and they should still reflect that the majority of us still do.

And some of you continue to defend these clueless corporate morons that are destroying a viable business that would survive if the content was dictated by its readers, who are actually its customers. I disagree that the advertisers are the customers because without the readers, the advertisers have no reason to be there. It's as simple as that and its no wonder they are losing subscribers in droves.

 

Dean,
Same thing here... I called Source Interlink yesterday where I usually pay my subs, and then eventually Motor Trend for help. The change was no problem at all, but why the reader has to go thru this drill is beyond me. I now have the impression that EVERY SINGLE SUBSCRIBER who is effected and does not for some reason get his R&C credits transferred to a magazine they like, WILL HAVE TO PERSONALLY HANDLE ANY FURTHER CHANGES. So, if you happened to get Hot Rod or Street Rodder or some other pub you like then you might be ok. I have no idea how many R&C subscribers there are or will be effected, but as this process plays out the R&C guys will probably have time to complete their off-shore island mansions before they lift a single pinky to help.

However, comma, while my R&C sub could be easily transferred to Motor Trend by "them" (the book keeping end of the rag business) getting it from the unwanted MT over to Hot Rod was another matter altogether. As it broke down for me, 36 months of my R&C was done at a car show where they give the big deals. So... I ended up having to call the folks who worked that booth (thankfully I still had the receipt) to they could make the change for their portion of my remaining R&C already in place at MT and transfer that (again!) to HR. Source Interlink, for some unexplainable reason, could not do that. VERY transparent to the user, eh? This is such a totally fucked up deal. Had I not done that myself, I'd have been stuck with 36 months of Motor Trend. Why this all could not have been taken care off by the various magazines involved, is beyond explanation evidently. And most certainly, why they couldn't ask us first what we wanted before it all started would have certainly been preferable and the honorable thing to do. But there's no honor is Publishing, eh? And to make matters a little worse, the change won't happen for 3 months, so I'll still get two more unwanted issues of MT and effectively loose three issues of Hot Rod because three issues of MT had already been "printed" or "credited" and already "paid" for from my subs.

I think it's time for a class action suit... any HAMBster lawyers want to try? Think of the thousands of screwed over subscribers! Gary

 

I've been following this thread even though I've never been a subscriber to R & C, I would buy issues from time to time, since the early 70s (as well as other car magazines.) and yet I never thought, in my life time, see magazine basically disappear almost overnight. As I've mention before, 7-11 no longer carries magazines. The local supermarket has wiped out all magazines. WalMart now sells half the amount of magazines they used to sell and not one single car or motorcycle magazine is on their shelf. It seems to me that since the turn of the 21st Century, our country has been on a downhill slide.
Oh, how I miss the 20th Century.

 

If it was a viable business, it would still be in business.

Magazines are paid for by advertising, not by subscriber fees.

Advertisers buy space in the magazine, in the hopes that you will buy their products.

If you do, this is seen as a successful return on the investment of the revenue for the advertising.

If not, advertisment contracts are not renewed, and the magazine folds.

Last time that I picked up a copy of Rod and Custom, it seemed that 90% of the ads were from The Hoffman Group brands.

I cannot necessarily fault the magazine for taking the revenue from such a despicable source, provided that there were no other comparable options. After all, that is their business model.

Were they they to refuse, they would be eschewing sound business practice, and being irresponsible to their investors, shareholders (if publicly traded), and their employees.

In the long run, and in the bigger picture, we may have done this to them.

How many of you purchase products from The Hoffman Group brands?

Anyone (less you folks who did so, before we were able to warn you)?

If no other advertiser stepped up with money for ads, and/or you did not buy the products advertised, what do you expect should have happened?

It's a business, same as any other. It exist to make money, not to please your sensibilities.

And no, they don't get us.

They get money. None of the decisions that they have made were about anything but making money.

Welcome to the harsh reality of the real world.

Print is dead. Long live print.

 

I also got a Motor Trend magazine yesterday. I emailed them this morning to ask them to cancel the Motor Trend and extend either my subscription to Hot Rod or Street Rodder. Hope this works out. I saw nothing in the Motor Trend that interested me at all.

 

Me either. My copy is already in the trash. The fact that they send subscribers to a hot rod type magazine a magazine that has absolutely nothing to do with hot rodding, when they have two other related titles, shows how little they know their subscribers, and how much it's purely about the money.